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Plants Are Actively Intelligent: What Does This Mean for Vegetarians?

Most vegetarians believe that by not eating animals, they are preserving life. Everyone knows that plants are alive but they are not viewed with the same level of intelligence as animals are. As science continues to uncover the complex nature of plants, it is becoming more apparent that plants are actively intelligent life that pursue their continued existence in similar ways as do animals.

Research on the subject naturally flies in the face of strict vegetarianism which often insists that eating animals is murder but eating plants is just fine. Yet the facts illustrate that the characteristics of animals used to argue that eating them is murder also apply to plants. In other words, in order for strict vegetarians to be consistent in their beliefs, they would also have to stop eating fruits and vegetables.

Plants are very sensitive to environmental changes and they have many built-in mechanisms to ward off attackers. They strive to find the best resources and have been observed to actually anticipate hurdles to survival and work to overcome them in advance.

According to Monika Hilker from the Institute of Biology at the Free University of Berlin, plants are intelligent life that communicate through chemical signals. They are capable of listening, talking, seeing, and feeling, all senses for which most people think only animals have the capability.

Even if it were true, this would not be earth-shattering news for a vegan as the question of the theoretical sentience of plants has been addressed by every serious vegan commentator. Since we do not live in a perfect world, vegans operate on the principle of least harm – far fewer plants have to be used to feed a vegan than an omnivore (obviously, all animals raised for food themselves have to be fed plants, multiplying the plants needed for an omni diet tenfold).

Dustin

Aren't plants also offering fruits and vegetables to animals as a way of spreading around their seeds? You aren't killing the whole tree when you pick an apple off of it, you're taking it's fruit, which it drops anyway, and is a way to spread it's seed, so you're actually helping it, not killing it, when you eat plants, at least in a lot of cases. I'm sure there's some plants where you eat the whole thing like carrots where you're uprooting it to eat the root, but in a lot of cases I'm sure you're doing the plant's bidding.

Gareth

Sorry but this is nonsense. The reason behind the majority of vegetarians not eating meat is due to the suffering of animals up to and during slaughter, and the fact that these animals have intelligible emotions. Animals become afraid, they feel stress. They dream. They are happy or sad. You're stupid if you think that a carrot would have the equipment to have the intelligence for thought like cattle or any animal eaten for food.

VelaCreations

that’s what meat eaters say about vegetarians:
you’re stupid if you think a cow would have the equipment to have the intelligence for thought…..

Uygar

Intelligence does not mean having emotions. Animals have emotions, but plants do not. As long as there are not emotions, there are not sufferings and there are not murders…Think about an artificial intelligence on a computer. We can say that it has an intelligence, but we cannot say it has emotions. So, when we kill the running program we never deal with ethical considerations…It is just fine.The consideration might be the level of consumption of the plants. But again, it is not because we hurt the plants, but because we are to change the balance of the nature, or we are to make some plants extinct…

this is one of those thoughts that seemed fun or deep when you where totally fucked up, but as a post it is just noise.

michaelskvortsov

So, what are we supposed to eat, dipshit?

Uygar

You got me wrong. I try to explain that eating vegetables is fine since plants don't have emotions…

GoodDoktorBad

Haven't there already been studies suggesting plants respond to stimuli such as peaceful music and giving plants good vibes through meditation and kind words vs. the opposites, violent music, harsh thoughts and words etc.?The plants they were”nice to” were healthier, supposedly. Does anyone here know about this?

ricealum

First off, by this definition, computer viruses are intelligent. God forbid you should run anti-virus software or take antibiotics — bacteria also communicate, and even form colonies! They're as intelligent as humans! Give me a break.

Second, while I do subscribe to the “least harm” philosophy, I have a broader view. I gave up meat because of the massive damage done to the environment by the meat industry, including clear cutting rainforest, dumping millions of tons of untreated sewage into rivers, using vast amounts of water, grains, and petroleum, and doing it all with massive government subsidies. And that doesn't even include the fishing industry that is currently driving itself out of business by overfishing and robbing millions of Africans of their primary food supply to boot.

Simply put, you can't be an environmentalist or a humanitarian while eating the typical American diet. You don't have to become a vegetarian, but you have to cut back to no more than 4-5 servings per week.

lv

you still have to eat. why not reduce harm where you can?

malatesting123

Wow this author is borderline retarded. How the fuck do plants listen? And to what? When I leave the garden, is it like one of those cartoons from when I was a kid when the people would leave the room and all the stuffed animals or knicknacks or whatever would come alive and have wonderful adventures, until someone came back home? Should I set up cctv stuff in my garden to catch them in the act? On the other hand, I did see some baby raccoons playing in the backyard while their mother looked on the other night. Some noise was made, the mother coon looked around, scooped up her little babies, and ran off the what I would assume was her cozy den.And Im still listening, ever so hard, for the hissing sound from the tomato plant when I pluck one off.

Jenni

So you set up a straw man and then knocked it down. Good for you little man! Now, how about finding out the real reason people are vegetarians and then addressing that. For some it's environment, for some religious reasons, for me it's simply emotion. When my broccoli can look me in the eye like a pig can I might reconsider. Until then, keep up the good work debunking arguments you came up with. I look forward to the next mansplanation.

This is the article that is being referenced in the above nonsense. It mentions nothing about “listening, talking, seeing, and feeling.”

oman28

I don't give a f*** whether my food is intelligent or not. I don't eat meat because my intestines are simply not designed to process it. Meat is cancer.

VelaCreations

funny, cause your ancestors have been eating meat for 100K years….

oman28

If you think that human beings are natural meat eaters I suggest you start behaving like one and only consume your meat raw. You won’t last long.

BC

I am vegetarian and I simply don’t want to eat animals that get to live no natural life and are tortured in many ways. My plants however get to live there normal life and are cared for with water and nutrition and getal care. I personaly have always felt plants have senses that most people are unaware of.

BC

I am vegetarian and I simply don't want to eat animals that get to live no natural life and are tortured in many ways. My plants however get to live there normal life and are cared for with water and nutrition and getal care. I personaly have always felt plants have senses that most people are unaware of.

VelaCreations

that’s what meat eaters say about vegetarians:
you’re stupid if you think a cow would have the equipment to have the intelligence for thought…..

VelaCreations

funny, cause your ancestors have been eating meat for 100K years….

Anonymous

If you think that human beings are natural meat eaters I suggest you start behaving like one and only consume your meat raw. You won’t last long.